Rotberg Says Somalia Delay Cost Lives

The U.S. delay in sending troops to Somalia may have cost as many as 500,000 lives and allowed militant clans to strengthen their grip on the impoverished nation, a local Africa expert said Saturday.

"We should have intervened six months ago when it was obvious there was no government," said Robert I. Rotberg, president of Lafayette College and author of more than a dozen books on Africa and Haiti. "Maybe a half million people have died because of our inaction, thugs have gained more territory and another one million people have weakened."

While the U.S. task could be complicated by warring bandits and political anarchy, Rotberg said, the United States is setting out to accomplish what Rotberg believes is a relatively simple task.

"Now that the pressure of the campaign is off, the muscle of America is being used to save people who have no government and are in desperate straits because of thuggery and naked robbery," Rotberg said in a telephone interview.

Though some have expressed fear that the unpredictable, well-armed clans now choking off food supplies could pose a threat to U.S. soldiers, Rotberg believes the bandits will provide little or no resistance.

"Disarming those groups will be a piece of cake," he said. "It's a 48-hour mission. The next part is the difficult part. It's trying to run a country it doesn't want to run and trying to make sure the whole process doesn't repeat itself."

"It's a major organizational job to take on a country that has been in decay for years and say, `OK, now we'll get you back into order.'"

He called President Bush's projection that the United States' work would be done by the end of next month "impossible." Realistically, he said, the 28,000 troops will likely remain in Somalia until mid-summer.

Rotberg said the poverty-ravaged country's plight is "every bit as bad" as it appears in television and newspaper reports.

"Ten million people are at risk of impoverishment and another two to three million are in danger of dying," he said. "It's sad because it's preventable. The food is there waiting to be delivered."

Most of Somalia's problems have been concentrated in the country's southern region, an area controlled by Italy until Somalia was formed in 1960, according to Rotberg. The northern part -- formerly British-controlled territory -- has essentially split off into its own country, Rotberg said.

The U.S. relationship with Somalia was strained throughout the mid-1970s when Somalia received arms from the Soviet Union. But when Somalia turned against neighboring Ethiopia's communist regime, the U.S. began siding with Somalia. U.S. support had virtually disappeared by 1990 amid increasing government corruption.